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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29093691">to say they were muscle is being kind, they were meat</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itabane/pseuds/Itabane'>Itabane</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>where once I was made of bone, now water, now nothing [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Backstory, Badass Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Gen, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loss of Limbs, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Speaks Cantonese, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Speaks Chinese, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:23:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,807</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29093691</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itabane/pseuds/Itabane</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Before she became Marinette, she was Qing-5-12-35, not the best but good enough, not the fastest but fast enough.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug &amp; Original Character(s), Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug &amp; Tom Dupain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>where once I was made of bone, now water, now nothing [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134578</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>to say they were muscle is being kind, they were meat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have a Chinese exam on Monday and here I am, posting angst instead of studying, I am a clown.</p><p>Just so it's easier with the names: only the last two digits of a number distinguish Marinette from her sisters, and the higher the number, the 'younger' the sister. This means that although all three of them are the same age, 29 is the oldest, 35 (Marinette) is the middle child, and 48 is the youngest. U9-34-17 is A-Huang, and any other number mentioned is just filler ^^<br/></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This batch of Qing-5 is quite lucky, they hear the scientists say when they think they're too stupid to understand. Normally Qing-Fives all fail, or there's one successful experiment per batch, but this one has three survive to their sixth year; it seems so promising. Q5-12-35 blinks and doesn't share a look with her batchmates; they've been around long enough to know that 'promising' is not going to be something good to be.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Q5-12-35 knows pain. It comes to her whenever she must be examined, whenever her progress needs to be checked. It comes to her when she is disobedient. It paints her tiny world with cries of agony, because if one is in pain they all watch and listen, and Q5-12-35 knows how much it hurts and she doesn't want to listen to her batchmates suffering like her.</p><p>She refuses to cause pain to others, not even those outside, her targets, the people who do weird things with their faces and bare their teeth to her and talk to her like she's something harmless; she makes sure she kills them all as quickly as possible instead.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Q5-12-48 talks to them sometimes; she's the one who understands the most of what the scientists say, because somehow she doesn't tire of listening to their disharmonious rambles. Q5-12-29 just ignores her, and Q5-12-35 really should do the same but Q5-12-48 is the most experienced of them all, the fastest of them, who has gone on so many more missions, has seen so much more of the slow, smiling others who sometimes even speak the language the scientists made them learn.</p><p>"There is this thing out there," Q5-12-48 says once after they're done with training for the day, "it's called a name. It differentiates people, and every person has one. It's just like our numbers, but their names aren't numbers, they can be colours or anything!" Q5-12-35 barely has the energy to stand, but Q5-12-48 is still jumping around like they haven't spent the last thirteen hours running drills non-stop. Is this what the scientists mean when they say 'the younger ones are faster'? "Oh, what would it be like if we had names instead, what do you think we would be named after?"</p><p>Q5-12-29 scoffs derisively from where she's laid eagle-spread on the bed. "What a stupid idea. How is it dignified to be called something common like 'table'? At least our numbers serve a purpose." Q5, for the group whose power is speed and agility. 12, for the batch they were from. The last number, to help differentiate between them all.</p><p>"No, but see, that's how their names work as well!" Q5-12-48 says brightly, as if untouched by Q5-12-29's sullen disposition. "One syllable for the whole web of batches, one syllable for everyone of the same batch, and one syllable to make them different from the others!"</p><p>Q5-12-35 perks up despite herself. "It's shorter than ours, then," she says quietly, and doesn't fold under Q5-12-29's unimpressed gaze.</p><p><a id="back1" name="back1"></a>"Our names are three syllables as well," Q5-12-29 rebukes, "because that's now numbers work. Or do you want me to start calling you 250<a href="#note1"><sup>1</sup></a> instead of 35?"</p><p>"Ah!" Q5-12-48 whirls around to face Q5-12-29 with a big smile. "You remembered that! I knew you were listening to me! See, sometimes it's nice to be able to understand what the whiteclothes say!"</p><p>"It's only nice for 29 to understand when she can insult me with it, so stop giving her ammunition!" Q5-12-35 whines, and Q5-12-48 laughs so much she almost collapses. Q5-12-29 rolls her eyes at them both, but doesn't throw biting comments at either of them, so that means she's laughing on the inside as well.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Q5-12-48 is decomissioned on her ninth year for refusing to become faster. She refuses to train during the alloted times, and doesn't fulfill her missions within the accepted parameters, and no matter if she's the fastest on Earth, the scientists don't have any use for someone who doesn't obey.</p><p>Q5-12-48 bleeds out slowly, and her last words are 'It hurts'.</p><p>Q5-12-35 watches as it happens, and makes the unsettling realisation that death isn't as painless as she'd always thought. That knowledge sinks into her bones even deeper when she and Q5-12-29 go back to the room and sit in silence that would have normally been filled by Q5-12-48's chatter, and she realises it's not only the person dying who feels the pain of a death.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>There is a child in front of her and Q5-12-35 is supposed to eliminate her because she's a witness. Q5-12-35 does not want to, because every time she blinks the girl turns to Q5-12-48, coughing out 'it hurts'.</p><p>Q5-12-35 refuses her mission.</p><p>The whiteclothes have learned from what happened with Q5-12-48 when the act of rebellion wasn't punished severely enough - they don't even give her time to blink before she's taken out of comission.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Why did you not obey, they ask. You are to obey. You are to be a weapon. What use is a weapon that doesn't do its job?</p><p>I just don't want to hurt people, Q5-12-35 thinks, but she knows enough not to say it out loud. A refusal to answer might be just as damning as the truth, but she will not give Q5-12-48's killers anything more.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They drag her back by the hair, tie her down and cut her legs off. She is to be decommissioned in two days, the scientists say.</p><p>(H1-05-83 needs more mobility, they say, and he lost a leg during a mission a few days back. He's such a successful experiment, he can do so much with the boost of abilities this will give him.)</p><p>Q5-12-29 is with her during all of this, but she does not look at her even once.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Q5-12-29 is dead and Q5-12-35 is not going to be decommissioned, and H1-05-83 is not going to get a new leg.</p><p>The scientists are angry; they don't know how Q5-12-29 died, and even with her legs reattached Q5-12-35 is not as fast as she was before, not as useful. Decommission is breathing down her neck. The room is only hers now, and Q5-12-35 hadn't realised how noisy another person's breathing was until she could hear only hers echoing between the concrete walls.</p><p>Q5-12-35 is sent to torture a man as long as she can, and they don't need to say what will happen if she fails. It's 36 hours before he finally dies; his blood has long since dried and stained under her fingernails, and the room stinks of piss and iron and <em>fear</em>, and Q5-12-35 just wants to stop hurting people.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Q5-12-35 wakes up to the smell of smoke and a frantic voice calling for help. She recognises the voice immediately - the head scientist in charge of her batch. The one who put 48 down.</p><p>The door is locked with five different manners of locks and is pure stainless steel, twenty centimeters thick, and her cell, like all the others, has an independent venting system that can run indefinitely, but she's trained to escape from tighter prisons. Q5-12-35 can kick down the door and help the scientist. She can save a life instead of ending it, for once.</p><p>Q5-12-35 curls in the corner of her bed and doesn't move until outside something explodes and the cries for help finally stop.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Someone is barking orders outside, in a language Q5-12-35 has never heard before, and she idly wonders if it's one of the ones U9-34-17 can speak. The locks of her door click open and five fully-armed soldiers barge in, FN-SCAR-L assault rifles loaded and pointed at her, but Q5-12-35 doesn't even lift her head, because what is the point? She's escaped death enough times for it to finally catch up to her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>There is a man in a military uniform and a moustache in front of her, and he is not afraid.</p><p>"What's your name?" he asks with a smile.</p><p>"Q5-12-35," she answers. He doesn't frown down at her like all the other men who'd entered before him had done after she'd answered their questions. His face is open and relaxed instead, and he looks the most like the people outside the lab, not the targets but everyone else.</p><p>"And how do they call you?"</p><p>Q5-12-35 almost reflexively answers, '35', but only Q5-12-29 and Q5-12-48 had called her that, and nobody else ever dared, after.</p><p><a id="back2" name="back2"></a>She remembers what U9-34-17 had said once, during a mission. 'I've seen the documents! Your group was called Qing-5! Qing, like blue in Mandarin! Although, it's not the kind of colouring you have... Did the one naming your group not see colours very well<a href="#note2"><sup>2</sup></a>?' He'd proceeded to call her that every time they had a mission together after that; according to him, it was a lot easier to lead them when he was working with names rather than numbers, and she'd... not believed him exactly, but just hadn't wanted him to stop, even when she'd learned he called every other model Qing-5 like that as well.</p><p>"Qing," she answers finally, and it feels less like a lie than any other name would.</p><p>"Well, Qing, I have a suggestion for you. My wife and I, we've always wanted a child of our own, so we'd be delighted to have you live with us, if you so desire!" He speaks in the language of the scientists, not the rolling tones of what she, Q5-12-48 and Q5-12-29 had been taught, and maybe that should make her wary. But his speech has some oddities in it, the way she remembers U9-34-17 had spoken when he'd had to translate between the operatives and every new switch made the previous language stick to the sounds of the new one. It makes Q5-12-35 feel warm and relaxed in a way she hasn't realised she'd missed.</p><p>This is an unknown man who wants to bring her to his wife, who is probably one of those other smiling ones, not the targets but the others, the civilians. If it's some kind of ploy to gather information, Q5-12-35 doesn't know enough of anything to be of use; if it's about something else, she's reasonably sure of her capabilities to take down both the soldier and the wife and whoever else was to be with them.</p><p>(<em>Reckless,</em> U9-34-17 used to scold her during every mission, <em>you're so ridiculously reckless. Think about the danger of what you're doing at least once before jumping into things!</em> Q5-12-29's nagging, <em>They should've named you 250, not 35!</em> had echoed in their room often enough. But Q5-12-29 isn't here now, and neither is U9-34-17 or any of his squad, and Q5-12-35 can be as reckless as she wants.)</p><p>"Okay," Q5-12-35 says, and takes the hand offered to hers. "I'll come."</p><p>After all, even if she's making a mistake, it's not like she has anything else to lose.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><ol>
<li>
<a id="note1" name="note1"></a>In Mandarin, 250 is a way to call someone an idiot/especially incompetent (though there are a lot of stories as to where this expression came from, the most popular version is: Originally, 1000 was a unit of a kind of copper coin with a hole in the middle, and was called a diào. Bàndiàozi literally means half a diào (500 pieces), which also indicates a stupid person. Therefore, the half of a half a diào (250 coins) is even more incompetent and stupid than just a half a diào.).<sup><a href="#back1"> [ ▲ ]</a></sup>
</li>

<li>
<a id="note2" name="note2"></a>'Qing1' 青 in Mandarin means 'green, blue', however it's often used for wildly different shades depending on the region of China someone is from, from light blue, lime-green or other shades of blue-green to a deep indigo (seriously, take <a href="https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/6832/what-is-the-difference-between-%E7%BB%BF-and-%E9%9D%92">this site</a> for example, <em>literally no two answers on there are the same</em>). As the files for the operatives write out the group names in Latin script and without tone marks, U9-34-17 is under the impression that they're all named after colours. Marinette's colouring is obviously dark blue rather than green-blue or cyan (which U9-34-17 considers to be the colours 'qing1' represents), and to him she should then logically be named 蓝 Lan2, which is the word for blue. This is why he makes this remark (which doubly confuses Marinette, because he's explaining all of this in Cantonese, and the Hong Kong variety of Cantonese she was taught considers 青 to mean green-yellow, rather than any shade of blue).<sup><a href="#back2"> [ ▲ ]</a></sup>
</li>
</ol></blockquote></div></div>
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